


Names

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:09:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6084333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Captive Prince 'the name of your soulmate is written on your skin' AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [akielosrises](http://akielosrises.tumblr.com/), who [inspired it](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/post/139399030517/akielosrises-josselinkohl-carouselcycles), thought of half the key plot points, and convinced me to write it.

The only good thing about this was that the prince-killing traitor was in chains and forced to his knees. He had been covered in ridiculous gold paint by Radel, and he was wearing a heavy golden collar with a chain attached and thick golden cuffs on his wrists that tied his hands behind his back.

Laurent circled him, slowly. This had to be a plot. This was his uncle’s work, somehow. But what did his uncle have to gain by delivering Laurent’s worst enemy to him on his knees.

Laurent asked the slave a question.

The slave was impertinent. Laurent slapped him. He wished he had had something in his hand to make the blow harder, but it was only a smack across the cheek with an open palm, more an insult than an injury. The man’s eyes continued to dare Laurent to take off his chains.

Laurent’s palm stung from the blow. He could feel it echo in his chest, somehow. His ribs were tight and it felt almost hard to breathe. He forced himself to hold himself coolly and circle the slave again contemplatively.

Behind the slave, he stopped. There was a smear in the gold paint covering the man’s back, and a letter was starting to appear through the paint. A cursive L that matched how Laurent signed his own name on official documents. 

The feeling in Laurent’s own chest centered on the patch of skin on his breastbone, below his shoulder blade and above his heart. He knew, suddenly, that when he stripped off his clothes, he was going to see the prince-killer’s name written there. He had screamed that name a dozen times on the battlefield after Auguste’s death, until his uncle’s men had dragged him away from the front. He had said that name a hundred times under his breath in training, as he pictured the moment when he drove his sword through this man’s ribs as he practiced. And he had dreamed of saying it a thousand times, when he thought of what he would say in the man’s last breaths, how he would gloat in that last moment before he killed him.

“Take him to the harem and beat him. Not gently.”

They dragged the man away. Laurent stood still for a moment until he was certain he could walk without swaying. 

“Send wine to my room,” he said.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’ve waited so that you and I could be alone,” Laurent said.

“In the bath,” the slave said.

Laurent didn’t acknowledge that with a response. “Strip,” he said. 

He saw in the slave’s eyes that he was thinking about killing Laurent. He was contemplating how to do it without any weapons readily to hand, and thinking about what he would do after. He wouldn’t make it from the palace alive. There was all sorts of poetry about soulmates dying together but Laurent had never seen a performance of this scenario.

Damen dropped his clothes on the floor. Laurent circled him again. When he was behind the slave he couldn’t get his eyes to leave his own name on the man’s shoulder. It was clear now, when the man wasn’t ridiculously covered in gold paint. Laurent wondered if anyone else had seen it yet. He wondered if his uncle had seen it. Possibly he should have gotten drunk again for this.

“Undress me,” he said.

Damen’s eyes showed that he thought about killing Laurent again. Damen recovered from this impulse, and began removing Laurent’s jacket. 

With the jacket off and his shirt still on, Laurent directed Damen to move to his boots and his trousers, leaving the shirt for last. Damen hesitated on what he was expected to do to remove it, and Laurent raised one of his own hands to tug it off over his head. 

They were both naked on the wet tile.

Laurent watched Damen look over his body, his gaze traveling from Laurent’s face -- which he had been watching warily -- to take in the proportions of his shoulders and his arms, the narrowing of his torso, the length of his legs. His eyes traveled back up and became caught on the name on Laurent’s shoulder.

Damen made a noise of recognition, some half-statement before he caught himself and bit off the rest. Unbidden, Damen reached out a hand toward Laurent’s shoulder to touch the name. 

Laurent was suddenly furious. He raised his arm to strike the man again.

Damen was fast. Faster than Laurent had expected. He caught Laurent’s wrist before it connected and held it tightly in his hand. Laurent reflected that his impulse to strike this man had now twice done him in. He should have never touched Damen. He should have run him through with his sword before their skin ever connected.

“Don’t be presumptuous,” Laurent said.

He could see Damen consider and discard a dozen responses, all of which probably gave away his ridiculous secret. As if Laurent could not know the face of the man whose name was written on his own skin.

The guards came in; he hardly had to raise his voice. “Take him to the cross,” he said, and they dragged Damen away.

Laurent waited until the baths were empty to give in to the weakness in his knees and collapse down to the tile floor. Water lapped from the bathing pool at the side of his calf. He gave himself to a slow count of ten, and then he climbed upright and reached for a towel. 

He was much faster at dressing himself than Damen had been at undressing him.

Laurent walked to the ring. He was no longer wearing his undershirt. It had become wet from the floor of the baths and he’d left it there. He could feel the thick material of his jacket on his skin.

“Begin,” Laurent directed.

The first round of blows missed the script.

“Lower,” said Laurent. 

One of the guards objected. “But your highness, his kidneys.”

“Do it or you’re next,” said Laurent.


	3. Chapter 3

The Vaskian tent was close quarters and Damen was only wearing a ridiculous Vaskian loincloth. Laurent watched Damen arrange himself for sleep, curling in on himself in the confines of the tent and rolling a bit on the furs so his back was to Laurent. Laurent extinguished the lamp hanging at the foot of the tent, and the tent became a series of shadows and a crack of moonlight.

Laurent reclined on the furs also. He turned his face toward Damen. He could see Damen’s back, the dark skin covered with a series of lighter scars. There were too many to count in the dim light, or perhaps too many to count at all, with the way the lines intersected each other. It would be like trying to count individual branches when looking up toward the sky in the forest.

There were two lines that intersected with Laurent’s name.

One of the strokes had landed almost completely on top of the name, covering most of the letters, and leaving only the top of the L completely clear, while the top of the r and more of the nt toward the end were visible due to the angle. A second stroke from a slightly different angle also ran over where the au would have been.

Laurent wondered how it worked, suddenly. Were the letters still there, perhaps hiding beneath the scar tissue that had formed over the injury? Or did the injury peel away the letters with the top layer of the skin, and they were gone completely. Paschal might know; Laurent was never going to ask him. If he had been in Arles, it was the type of question that he might have taken with him on a private trip to the library, and searched for in the collection when he had a moment alone. But there were no such liberties in the middle of a military camp.

Damen’s breathing had evened into the slow cadence he had while asleep. Damen seemed to have no compunctions about falling asleep in a small tent with his back to his captor. He was either that foolish, or that confident of his ability to fight Laurent even when just awoken, or that lulled by the lazy contentment that emitted from the bond between them. Possibly all of those.

Laurent’s eyes still lingered on Damen’s back and the scars. He reached out slowly in the darkness and placed the tips of two of his fingers on the scar covering most of his name, brushing one of the fingers lightly over the top of the L.

It only felt like skin, raised where scarred. Damen’s skin was warm. 

Laurent let his finger linger for a moment on Damen’s back in the same fashion he had let his eyes linger. 

Laurent had a flash suddenly behind his eyelids. He was no longer in a dark tent in the Vask foothills, he was in the middle of a sun-lit field at Marlas, the ground torn up by the horses and littered with fallen men and pieces of discarded armor or weapons. 

Auguste was in front of him. His face was tired, determined, and smudged with the mud that covered the field. He was charging toward Laurent, and then Laurent blocked, and he saw Auguste’s misstep again, the same way he had dreamed it a thousand times, and he thrust his sword and watched his brother fall.

Laurent pulled his fingers away from Damen’s back with a gasp. The light and sound of the dream had him blinded and deafened for a moment, before it faded slightly and he came back to himself in the tent. He was lying on a pile of warm furs. The tent was dark and filled with the sound of Damen’s breathing, quicker now as he dreamed. 

Laurent thought that he might throw up, and held himself very still.

He had had that same dream for six years. He had been on the field at Marlas, but not where he had been in the dream. He’d been up on the top of the ridge that had overlooked the rock outcrop and the battlefield. The sun had been in front of him, not at his back. He’d seen Auguste fall from the back, watching from a distance as his brother crumpled, too far away to hear Laurent calling to him. 

He had thought that it was only a nightmare, his brain’s frantic reimagining of the worst moment of his life, returning to it over and over again restlessly when he slept. But it was not a dream, it was a memory, and a shared one. 

Laurent held himself very tensely and bit down on the side of his cheek within his mouth to keep from moving. He wasn’t certain what he was going to do if he moved, torn between the conflicting impulse to wrap his body around Damen’s back and ease him awake from the nightmare gently and the impulse to stab the knife clutched in his fist into Damen’s back. If he were careful, he could aim to hit the remainder of the top of the L.


	4. Chapter 4

Laurent wasn’t sure if Govart had known what he was looking for, and taken off Laurent’s jacket in a deliberate effort to reveal it, or if the discovery of the word written on Laurent’s shoulder — faintly visible through the fine linen of his undershirt — had been an accidental find.

There weren’t that many who could have known it was there — Damen, of course, from the reveal in the baths, but he was unlikely to have spread the news to Govart. Perhaps one of the other men had caught him bathing or changing, though Laurent tried to be discreet about that. It was one of the reasons making Damen his manservant had been a good idea — with anyone else, he would have had to worried about them discovering.

So perhaps Govart took off his jacket for other reasons (Laurent could speculate as to what they were), and came upon the name written there as a happy accident. Perhaps Govart would report back to Laurent’s uncle later, and how that might gall him! It was worth thinking about for a moment, especially when the other thing to think about was the feeling of Govart’s clumsy fingers stripping off his shirt. 

His uncle had not known what he had given Laurent when he had put Damen in front of him that day in the audience chamber. The slave was probably off right now, killing hundreds of his uncle’s men single-handedly by swinging his sword around himself, and wondering why Laurent was such a liar and had failed to show up at Charcy.

Poets claimed that soulmates could tell when their mate had died. He wondered if Damen would know, after Govart finished him off, if the resonance would cause him to falter on the field.

Govart had maneuvered his shirt off, now, and was focused on his shoulder. “That’s very interesting,” he said, pointing at the name written there.

“Oh, are you literate?” said Laurent, keeping his voice controlled.

Govart just laughed. He moved his knife to his right hand; he was right handed. He brushed over the name on Laurent’s shoulder with the tip of the knife point, drawing a red line over the skin but not piercing it.

“I’ve heard they’re just skin deep,” said Govart, considering. “That you can cut them right off. Should we find out?”

Laurent failed to find anything to say that was more interesting to Govart than the idea of sliding his knife into Laurent’s shoulder.

Laurent shouted.

He supposed it could have been worse. He could have had the name somewhere else. His hand, or his face, where it would have been much more challenging to obscure and much more painful when Govart decided to try removing it. It could have been written on his wrist, where he might have bled out fairly quickly after Govart made the first few cuts. This was fortunate, he told himself. He could work with this. And then Govart became slightly more creative and Laurent shouted again. 

It was a long time before Guion came to check on them. He came alone, as Laurent had expected, and oddly enough Govart had done Laurent a favor with his fascination with the word, because by the time Guion arrived, Laurent’s shoulder was covered in enough blood that any remnants of the letters of Damianos V on his skin was completely obscured, and his secret remained kept.


	5. Chapter 5

Laurent stood in his tent. He had been prepared for Damen entering the tent without protocol and without being announced by his servant. He had been prepared for Damen throwing his uncle’s banner down on the ground in front of him — his messenger had already told him of the victory. He had been prepared for Damen to look different at the head of his own army than he was next to Laurent at the head of his. He had pictured Damen as an Akielon, as putting on Akielon armor. He had even pictured Damen as a king. The posture with which he carried himself, the way he made decisions. He had seen those peeking forth from Damen’s weak disguise from the first day Damen had been put in front of him, and so it was easy to incorporate those elements into the overall picture now.

He had not been prepared to be reunited with his soulmate. He wasn’t prepared for how Damen squinted through his bluster, assessed Laurent with a single glance, and then reached for his shoulder and pressed down on his injury.

Laurent’s mouth fell open slightly at the first pressure, and he suppressed his reaction, and Damen applied greater force. Laurent cried out. “Stop.”

Damen stopped. 

Laurent put a hand up to his shoulder.

Damen nodded, knowing. As though in a single moment he’d not only assessed Laurent’s injury, but divined the entire happenings of the last three days they’d been apart, heard every insult that Govart had spewed, felt every blow, and weathered it.

“You wouldn’t break an oath to me,” said Damen, and his certainty was galling.

“To you,” said Laurent. 

Damen’s eyes flicked to his shoulder, as though to say, _You know who I am. My name is written upon you._

Except that Damen _didn’t_ know what had happened. Laurent reminded himself that for all Damen knew, Laurent had carved Damen’s name off his own shoulder in disgust.

“I’ve come to tell you who I am,” said Damen.

“I know who you are, Damianos,” said Laurent.


	6. Chapter 6

“I am going to inspect the spears for the okton. I would be honored if you joined me,” said Nikandros, addressing himself to Damen.

Nikandros’s excuse to draw Damen away from his throne for a private moment was transparent. The horror had been written on his face since Damen had dropped his garment to go slather himself in oil, and then the horror had hardened into resolution, and his invitation to Damen — polite enough that Damen did not seem to notice it was merely an excuse — was simply the next expression in the progression.

Inspecting equipment was hardly a job for a king. Laurent had let Damen do it when acting as his manservant, and Damen had an attentive manner and a careful eye for detail in looking over weaponry and armor for weaknesses. Yet it was still a ridiculous invitation.

Nikandros’s excuse had been obvious enough that Laurent didn’t bother to think of his own excuse before following the two of them into the spear tent. He slipped inside the entrance of the tent to see Nikandros wrest the clothing from Damen’s shoulders. Damen, ridiculously loyal, did not even attempt to defend himself.

“Who did this to you?”

Laurent needed to distract him. “I did.” Damen turned his direction at the sound of his voice, and Laurent felt a momentary welling of satisfaction.

Nikandros whirled his direction as well, and looked a comment away from hitting him.

“I tried to kill him, but—”

Laurent’s assessment of Nikandros’s readiness to hit him had been accurate. Damen was forced to step in between them. That was foolish because it put Nikandros at his back and in full view of the scars, where he could be reminded of the source of his anger. And possibly, see the remainder of the letters of Laurent’s name, and recognize them, given he was already suspicious of Damen’s motives and affection for Laurent.

Nikandros was challenging him to a duel, which might have been interesting as a method to prove himself to the Akielons. He was looking for a way to demonstrate to them that he was not entirely useless on the field, and he had watched Nikandros sparring with Damen and Laurent could probably defeat Nikandros. 

It didn’t matter, Nikandros was honorable, and wasn’t going to fight him when Damen said no.

It was Damen that Laurent needed to prod if he wanted—“He’s forgiven me for the whip, you see,” said Laurent. “I have forgiven him for killing my brother.”

“You flayed the skin from his back,” Nikandros spat.

So his objection was still the scars, and he had not yet observed Laurent’s name. Laurent was pleased. 

“Well,” he drawled, “I didn’t do it personally. I watched as my man did it.”

Damen had to tighten his grip on Nikandros’s arm; Nikandros was close to attacking Laurent with or without permission. If Nikandros did strike him, then Damen might have to permit a duel between them to avenge each of their honor.

“He might have died,” said Nikandros.

“Yes. That was the idea.”

Damen, whose eyes had been carefully on Laurent throughout this exchange, now wrapped an arm around his friend again, preventing Nikandros from lunging forward.

“Go, Nikandros. Get out of here. Now.”

“Why?” said Damen, which was his favorite question, usually because he was too dense to observe Laurent’s motives for himself. “He’s going to defect.”

That was another ridiculous assessment of motives. “He’s not going to defect.” Nikandros, despite his honor, was more likely to sneak into Laurent’s tent and kill Laurent and then kill himself in shame than he was to defect from Damen.

It was still possible that if he provoked Damen enough, that he could use the duel.

“Should I have told him I didn’t enjoy it? I did enjoy it,” he watched the reaction on Damen’s face, calculating. “I liked it most near the end, when you broke down.”

Damen refused to react. “Why are you here?”

Laurent was not prepared for that question, and Damen could tell. Laurent was distracted for a moment by the mirror behind Damen. He tried to spy how visible his own name was on Damen’s back. It sometimes seemed to him as though it were an enormous beacon, and yet other people rarely seemed to see it. 

Damen seemed to intuit a different reason for his glance in the mirror. “Admiring your work?”

“Yes,” said Laurent. He left.


	7. Chapter 7

It did not require much of Laurent’s attention to undress himself. It took time, but not attention. So while Laurent unlaced the ties of his jacket and drew them away from his throat, Laurent was free to focus his attention on Damen’s reactions.

Damen watched the slowly exposed skin as though it were a revelation, as though it had been an eclipse and the light were only just returning. Damen seemed to have completely forgotten Jokaste and the child and the revelation of his whereabouts. 

Laurent let the jacket fall behind him to the bed. Damen’s eyes went to his shoulder. His shirt was fine and the scar was visible even through the thin fabric.

It wasn’t bandaged any longer. The wound was healed and Paschal didn’t even expect Laurent to apply a salve any longer. If he weren’t throwing a dozen spears he didn’t need his shoulder wrapped for support. 

Laurent pulled his shirt off to let Damen look his fill.

Damen sat up partially beneath him to inspect the injury more closely. 

“I know who you are,” Laurent said. He said Damen’s full name and watched the effect that had on him, a shudder of emotion as Laurent spoke. Laurent said it again. Damen moved his hands to Laurent’s waist. 

Laurent invited Damen to touch his own scar by reaching for Damen’s. He had touched it before, their first time together, thinking of Auguste and of all that lay between them. He reached for it again now, making it an invitation for Damen to reciprocate.

Damen did, reaching his hand toward Laurent’s shoulder. His fingers trembled slightly before they rested on Laurent’s skin. His touch was light, as though Laurent were a fragile bird, or a delicate piece of blown glass, or a frail eggshell. Damen’s forefinger brushed over the letters. Laurent was none of those; he suppressed an impulse to remind Damen of this.

“What does the V stand for?” said Laurent.

Damen’s eyes moved from his shoulder to his face, and Damen pushed himself up from the bed and their lips met. The kiss was messy and desperate. 

“I had always hoped for the sentiment to be mutual,” said Damen. The words seemed to emerge from a place deep inside him. “That if was going to love enough for my name to be here,” Damen brushed his thumb reverently over the remaining letters and Laurent’s scar, “that I would have a similar privilege of your name somewhere on me.”

Laurent kissed him. “It is,” he said, sharing one of the remaining secrets that lingered between them. “Or, it was.”

Damen seemed genuinely surprised; Laurent should have learned by now. Laurent had suspected, but he hadn’t known if Damen had felt the name first appear on his skin in the manner Laurent had felt it.

Laurent reached a hand to Damen’s back, and he unerringly found the spot on Damen’s skin without even rolling Damen over to look. Damen’s touch on Laurent had been tentative and gentle. Laurent’s touch on Damen was sure. “Here.”

Damen looked at Laurent with an expression of awe. He craned his head to attempt to see the location of Laurent’s hand, but it was in a position that a man could not view on himself.

“Do you wish a set of mirrors to look for yourself?” He found it hard to believe that Damen had not sought out a set to look over every inch of his own body for that purpose as soon as he knew that Laurent was wearing his name. Soulmates were often mutual. But then, he was learning that Damen did not always do the things that to Laurent seemed obvious. And he supposed he had been keeping Damen chained up in the palace harem at the time. 

Damen shook his head to the offer of mirrors, but he moved Laurent’s arm to settle Laurent’s hand on his back again. Then, he adjusted his own again on Laurent’s shoulder. When they were both touching in that manner, Laurent felt as though time had stilled. All of his senses but touch fell away. He could no longer hear the quiet noises of the king’s room in Ios and the sound of his and Damen’s own breath. Damen’s image felt blurred in front of him though only a hand-span away from his face. He couldn’t smelled the salt of the sea air coming in from the coast or the sweat of Damen’s skin. All of his attention was only focused on the places where he and Damen were touching, and then, suddenly, all of the places he wished that they were touching.

Laurent _wanted_ with an intensity he had never felt before. He pulled his boots off quickly, tossing them to the ground, and let Damen pull off the remainder of Laurent’s clothing. 

It was as though they couldn’t press themselves together closely enough. Damen’s embrace was tight, and Laurent could feel the wet press of Damen’s mouth against the tender scar on his shoulder. He twisted in Damen’s embrace. “Do it,” he said. “I want you to, I want you to do it--”

Damen was making some kind of objection that Laurent could not abide. “I don’t care,” he said, moving sinuously back toward Damen as if they were already joined to show what he wanted. 

Then they were joined, finally, and Laurent pressed his face into the bedding. When Damen pushed into him his elbows almost collapsed and he had to brace himself against the bed. Damen slid an arm around his chest to help support him, and Laurent relaxed into it, pressing desperately into Damen’s oiled hand.

Laurent’s arms gave out again, and he fell on to the bed and Damen slipped out of him. Damen lost patience with the position and rolled him over on to his back. Laurent reached for him eagerly, twining his hands around the back of Damen’s neck, pulling his face closer so they could kiss again before Damen reared back to enter him once again. 

Laurent moved one of his hands from Damen’s neck to lower, more toward the middle of his back, and he felt Damen realize where he had positioned it as Laurent called out Damen’s name again, and then both of them were lost over the edge.


	8. Chapter 8

“Laurent,” his uncle said. His voice was mild. “You have caused me a great deal of trouble.”

Laurent suppressed a desire to be wearing his entire set of battle armor rather than a thin chiton. He suppressed a desire to reach for Damen’s hand, to draw strength from its grip or to rest his own unsteady hand on Damen’s forearm. He drew an even breath instead, and gave his voice the same casual tone as his uncle’s.

“Have I?” he said. 

He could feel his uncle’s eyes moving over his skin, looking him over from head to toe and then back up to his face. 

“Petulance has never suited you,” his uncle said. 

It was a blatant lie. His uncle had treated petulance indulgently when Laurent had been younger; Nicaise was the same. 

His uncle was speaking of Nicaise now. “He didn’t know you’d abandon him to treason and death out of spite.”

“Yes, I’m fickle and unreliable,” Laurent said. It was a chorus with which he was well familiar. Damen fidgeted next to him, and this drew Laurent’s uncle’s attention. He addressed his next remarks to Damen.

“You must find satisfaction in getting the Prince of Vere under you.”

Damen acted as though he hadn’t heard that remark. “You’re alone. You can’t use weapons. You don’t have men. Your words are meaningless.”

Damen was wrong, though. Words were always meaningful. 

Damen was still speaking, but Laurent’s attention was on his uncle, and his uncle’s attention was on Laurent’s shoulder.

His uncle took a step closer to Laurent suddenly, and pushed the fabric clustered at his shoulder with a pin to the side. The folds of linen slid down Laurent’s upper arm.

One of the Kingsmeet sentries shifted slightly at his uncle’s sudden movement, then subsided when his uncle stepped back again after revealing Laurent’s scar.

The Regent’s face showed genuine surprise, and yet Laurent was not even in a position to appreciate it. He pulled his chiton back up over his shoulder, feeling as though he were a blushing maiden.

“Oh,” said his uncle, a noise of understanding. “I see how it is now.”

The Regent turned to Damen again. “And his name is on you, somewhere?”

Damen said something about refusing to be distracted from the reason they were there.

Laurent’s uncle ignored him. “It makes sense to me now,” he said to Laurent. “Why you would spread for your brother’s killer.” He gave a half-laugh. Laurent deliberately relaxed his hands from clenching into fists. His uncle’s voice was almost kind. “I thought perhaps you didn’t know--or that it was some sort of plot you were trying to hatch. But you were not even so clever as that, were you.”

Damen continued. “You might have taken us by surprise, but that is all.”  
Laurent’s uncle still had the almost fond tone to his voice. “This isn’t about some sort of plot at all. This is--sentiment.” He imbued with word _sentiment_ with scorn, and laughed derisively. His uncle turned toward Damen. “Tell me, where is his name on you?”

“That is not why we are here,” said Damen firmly.

The air of the Kingsmeet changed suddenly, the way the air sometimes felt electrified during a storm on the plains in Kempt before a strike of lightening. “I don’t think Laurent told you why you are here,” said his uncle.

Laurent could feel the blood drain from his face suddenly, realization coming upon him. “Damen,” he said, reaching for Damen’s arm, because that was an insignificant weakness now in comparison to what was coming. “We need to leave.”

Damen had a manner of speaking that could command all of the men in a room to listen, even when he was a foreign slave surrounded by men and their own hierarchy of leadership. Damen could shout directions and turn a troop of men quickly enough to avoid a landslide near a cliff or to sidestep an ambush on the battlefield. Auguste had been the same way; men had listened to Auguste in the same way. It was a skill that neither Laurent nor his uncle possessed, and Damen was unmovable.

“It’s a trap,” said Laurent. “Go.”

“No,” Damen said stubbornly. “He is just one man.”

Of course, Damen was not intimidated until there were at least seven men to take him down. He was foolish about his own weaknesses, which were undoubtedly ones related to sentiment. Laurent could feel himself scoffing the word in his own mind with the same tone as his uncle.

“Get out,” said Laurent. He could hear his desperation in his voice; he was sure his uncle could hear it. Damen did not seem to notice.

“Please,” said Laurent. “Damen.”

“No,” said Damen again. “Tell me your terms for the child.”

“No,” said Laurent’s uncle. “I prefer to keep the child. I am here for my nephew. He is going to beg me to take him. On his knees. And perhaps with that scar showing, so I can appreciate it as part of the view.”

“Damen,” said Laurent. “Go. Leave.”

“No,” said Damen, as though his vocabulary had been reduced to that one word, which he used to answer both Laurent and his uncle. “Laurent is never going to kneel in front of you.”

Laurent’s uncle took a step closer to Damen and spoke conspiratorially. “Aren’t you wondering why he wants you to leave so badly?”

“Damen,” said Laurent a final time, but it was too late.


	9. Chapter 9

Paschal finished bandaging Damen’s abdomen again and left the two of them alone. 

Laurent’s chiton had slid slightly off his shoulder and exposed his scar and the remnants of Damen’s name. Damen traced the letters lightly with a single fingertip. Damianos V. The letters were almost illegible in the middle where Govart had placed the knife.

“You have a scar,” Damen said again. 

“He–” Laurent didn’t specify who he was speaking of, but they both knew. “He didn’t have a mark. There was no name written on him.”

“He wasn’t capable of love,” said Damen.

“I didn’t think I was either,” said Laurent.

**Author's Note:**

> [All of the author's Captive Prince fanfic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin/works?fandom_id=3516977), [come follow me on tumblr](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/)


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